Category: Slovakia

I got up super early in Vienna, planning to have as much time as possible on a day trip to Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia. When I got there and walked around for a couple of hours, I felt like I had seen it all, as there was not really much to see.
When driving into the city from the West you pass a bridge with a UFO looking observation tower where you have a great view of the city’s main attraction, the Hrad Castle. Unfortunately for me, that whole castle was under construction so it was just the old town left to explore, which didn’t take long and then I was on my way back to Vienna.
Vienna and Bratislava are the two capitals in the World that lay closest together, and buses leave frequently taking about an hour. I went with a company called Student Agency which cost only four euros including a hot drink served on the bus, newspapers and individual screens for entertainment. Except for Chisinau in Moldova, I think Bratislava was the most boring capital I have visited in Europe. I was hoping to see something more Eastern European, like it was portrayed in the movie Eurotrip, but instead it felt as if it was trying to be Western by building some statues and modern buildings and ending up as something in the middle. For those considering visiting on a day trip I would much rather recommend staying another day in Vienna or visiting another Austrian city like Graz or Linz. That is, of course, if you do not have time to visit the other Slovakian cities like Kosice, Trnava, Levoca and Bojnice which I heard are all supposed to be very beautiful.

The statue of Napoleon leaning on a bench. A cannonball he shot is still in the wall of the tower behind him, as pointed out on the free 11 o’clock walking tour that I joined.

I just discovered a genius way of displaying all posts on a Google Map using Map My Posts. The widget works with WordPress and can be downloaded from this page. It is really easy to install and simple for people to use. It simply groups your posts by country and add them to a clickable map like the one below:

I am also using a similar Wordpress widget called Map Route, which will be able to show you where I am going next: